I'd be most interested to hear from others who have succeeded in the most interesting task of downloading and actually successfully installing Netscape 6.0.

Netscape is touting this as...

Netscape 6, the browser that CNET called "a mighty impressive app, maybe even an IE killer."

My experience with it might be better described in, uh... well, we can't use expletives in here. Dang.





[Edited by etLux on 11-16-2000 at 03:02 AM]

well I'd say they are flogging a dead horse with ver 6, but the horse died a long time ago and flogging it isn't work anything... By now it's way too far gone and pulpy, and a bit on the nose. Time to bury it and grow a tree.

Greg Moore

As much as some poeple in the Linux community might hate M$ .. you got to admit .. IE for Linux would be sutch a welcome program ;)

If Microsoft had known how lousy and slow the new Netscape browser was going to be, they might not have been so heavy handed in pushing Internet Explorer. Netscape is helping increase IE's market share even more.

Many of us who used Navigator and cheered for the underdog have abandoned it as our browser of choice.

IMHO, I approve of Microsoft's agressive attitude on upgrading browser versions.

It helps a great deal to eliminate the plethora of obsolete browsers with which web site builders needs must deal; and it likewise greatly improves the quality of browsing for the user.

It is also apparently very effective. Our logs show that IE5.5 now substantially exceeds IE5.0; and that IE4.X is almost out of the picture.

It's probably the most efficient upgrade campaign I've ever seen...

If you wish to use expletives, you may do so. Just asterisk out certain letters and it should be fine.

I only say this because even though installation was fine, I am absolutely pissed off by the poor piece of sh*t that I even bothered to try.

Suffice to say, after using it for about half an hour, I deleted it straight off my computer, never to see it again.

I'll refrain from the expletives, but I will say it took six shots and tremendous patience to get it to install... and somewhere in the process, I got two Windows .dll's blown out, that I had to restore from CD.

I've also heard the exact same story from about a half dozen people so far.

Enough said.

Thanks for posting your experiences with NS6...I thought about downloading it because I used to be a big NS fan, but IE5 set me straight :D

NS6 seems to be quite demanding of system resources, and I hate that in a single program.

I'm afraid of IE5.5 though. Some ppl have said they had problems with it and Javascript.

Drivingmiss...

Aside from the download and installation problems -- which I certainly hope aren't as commonplace as my e-mail nonetheless seems to indicate they are -- I'm afraid subsequent experience with NS6 is increasingly disappointing.

In a way, this rather saddens me. I'd sincerely hoped Netscape would come out with a genuinely solid product on this go-round; as I truly believe that stiff competition is good for this industry.

As it stands, NS6 is slow to the point of being ridiculous, fails to correct major weaknesses and a lack of robustness in its HTML interpreter, handles JAVA -- and this really surprises me -- extremely poorly, and, like its predecessor NS4, is extremely crash-prone.

I will say this, though. It is kinda pretty.

And beauty is only skin deep.....

Ya gotta look out for the pretty ones.. they're often the most deadly.

Originally posted by BC
And beauty is only skin deep.....

that is why I have hotbar. skins IE but still runs great (except when the ol' internet crashes or the site is so slow it is like being on a 9600KBPS modem, which is the sites fault).

Orinially posted by Drivingmiss
NS6 seems to be quite demanding of system resources, and I hate that in a single program.]

ugh. I d/l NS6 just to see it, and got it right off of my comp as soon as it loaded the first page. And if anyone wonders why I am saying, I am hard on my system resources with enough programs running sometimes that one false move could send me into the Blue Screen of Death ;)

Originally posted by Allyn
I am hard on my system resources with enough programs running sometimes that one false move could send me into the Blue Screen of Death ;)

Same here, my poor computer sometimes struggles to keep up :)

The only reason I keep Netscape around anymore is to see how much worse my sites look in it, since it doesn't like my style sheets, hmph. When I use it I just turn Java off. Netscape is horrible with Java.

Poor Netscape. I wish they'd become a real contender again.

I downloaded and installed NS6 final release the day it came out. Installation was a snap, no problems there. I put it in another directory than Netscape 4.76 so could have both.

Advantages:
1. Faster rendering engine, doesn't screw up my web pages like Netscape 4.x does, is supposed to be more standards compliant and less buggy than 4.x's engine (you can resize a window without having the page to be redrawn and screwed up like 4.x does).

Disadvantages:
1. Slow to load up. For me, always loads up in the background under my other open windows and I have to minimizie/maximize it from the toolbar to actually see it.
2. Memory hog. Gobbles up twice as much as NS 4.x (20-30MB vs. 4.x's 10-15MB)
3. Java implementation takes up 7mb or so of memory. And I don't like how it's done, although it supports "Java 2". Not sure if Microsoft's JVM does or not. But I don't use Java much anyways when I'm browsing.

So all in all, my default browser is still IE 5.5 SP1. I keep the two netscapes around to see what web pages look like after I make them. In that regard, I'm happier with NS6 than NS 4.x.

Honestly© I like the NS6 better than IE 5©5© I rather like the loading© For me it loads the whole page before it shows it to me© And this only takes about a few secs depending on how many graphics there are on the site I'm visiting© But for IE it just loads whatever it thinks it can then timesout© Leaving sometimes several pics not loaded© NS now has scroller marquee functions and CSS functions which is good© Also for most people CSS would lag sometimes for people using IE 5©5 but with NS6 it doesn't©

Right now I'm using NS6, it's doing fine better than my IE5©5© I say get NS6 and use it for awhile© It's a great browser© But I'll agree with most people who told me, it is a pain in the ass to get it installed© Too many steps© But once it's in I love it©

Concerning the matter that prompted this thread to begin with... after waiting a good week and more for it, I am pleased to announce that Netscape has finally deigned to answer my request for support.

Per their original intake form's requirements, I of course provided them with all relevant (and probably a lot of irrelevant) information on the problem.

Netscape has replied thus:


Valued Netscape Customer,

We thank you for your inquiry and appreciate your patience. We are receiving a much greater than anticipated volume of interest and apologize for any delay in response that you may have encountered. We realize that you may have sought out other sources of support. If you continue to experience problems with Netscape please reply to this message with a brief synopsis of the problem as well as any new behavior you may have noticed from the problem. Upon receiving your response a Netscape technician will respond to your request in the order in which it was received.

Netscape Technical Support


I cannot praise Netscape highly enough in this matter, for both their fast response and the specific and helpful comments they provided toward solving the problem I encountered.

More than any other experience I've had with Netscape, this latest one has definitely swayed my opinion of them, and of their product. Guess which way.

:D

I hate to say it, but I'm going to download Netscape tomorrow for a friend of mine...yes, although friends don't let friends surf with Netscape, it's the only thing I can do to prevent a 63MB download....ack.....and he doesn't have a CD-ROM drive...I'd have to d/l the entire browser, DUN 1.3, DCOM, DBIRD, DFUNK (not official MS software), and whatever else...

Originally posted by Drivingmiss
:D

I hate to say it, but I'm going to download Netscape tomorrow for a friend of mine...yes, although friends don't let friends surf with Netscape

Please, if you must use Netscape, do it carefully.

But try to find a good 12-step program as soon as possible.

Instead of the 12-step, I plan to use the Patch, in the grand old tradition of Microsoft Windows 95.

That's what they give me to work with. Yikes!

I have downloaded and installed NS6 with no problems at all. I have to agree with most that it is really slow to load up certain pages and JAVA if at all. I can say on a positive side though I have not been able to lock it up as of yet. I will stick with IE5.5 though since it is much faster and usually displays what it is supposed to.

X-treme